Russian Jews Come to U.S. In Big Group

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The largest group of Jewish refugees to arrive in the United States in a single day since the end of World War II touched down at Kennedy International Airport yesterday.

By evening, 1,606 refugees had arrived from the Soviet Union, including an estimated 250 Pentecostal Christians. The rest - 1,356 - were Soviet Jews who arrived in time to celebrate Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown tonight and ends at nightfall Sunday.

''We have come to begin a new life,'' said Alexander Fridgan, an engineer from the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, who arrived with his wife, son and in-laws. His 9-year-old son, Mark, carried a battered violin case.

The new arrivals had undergone processing in Rome or Vienna, where American immigration officials had made a special effort to take advantage of a processing policy that ends tomorrow at midnight. Under the new policy, all the paper work for Soviet refugees will be handled at the American Embassy in Moscow, rather than in Europe. The Moscow Embassy is already faced with immense backlogs, and the new policy is expected to cause even longer delays for Jews wishing to come to the United States. 'A New Beginning'

While the arrival of Christians under the old policy will continue until tomorrow's deadline, the agencies assisting Jewish refugees decided to stop the flow two days early out of respect for Rosh ha-Shanah.

''Rosh ha-Shanah represents a new beginning for every Jew, but especially for these people,'' said Karl Zukerman, executive director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, who greeted the refugees at the airport.

The last time this many Jewish refugees arrived in the United States in a single day was just after World War II, he said, when ocean liners arriving from Europe brought survivors of the Nazi terror to new lives in the United States. Yesterday, Kennedy Airport was a tableau of emotional scenes, of weeping and hugging and corks popping on bottles of champagne as scenes of family reunion were played out one after another. Relatives straining to get a look at their arriving loved ones had to be held back by the police at the International Arrivals Building.

''I dreamed of this day a long time,'' said Zena Gadelova of Rego Park, Queens, as she hugged each of her four younger brothers, Isaak, Abraham, Ariel and Yakub Mastov after they arrived on a charter flight. She had not seen them in five years and they came with 17 other relatives, including wives, children and in-laws. Her husband, Meyer, said, ''We must all go to the synagogue to thank the Almighty.''

The newcomers will stay either with family members or be placed in hotels by resettlement agencies. The four Mastov brothers and their families, for example, will initially move in with relatives and friends. 'Somebody Helped Me'

One of their hosts was Leviev Mark, who came to New York from the Soviet Union two years ago and now owns a video store in Brooklyn. ''I came just like they did - there were 23 in my family group - and somebody helped me, so I will help,'' he said.

Many arriving refugees had been among the 14,000 Soviet Jews in Rome awaiting final processing. They said tension had been building there in the last few weeks about who would be able to get out before the deadline.

State Department officials have said they will continue to review the applications of Soviet refugees waiting in Rome and Vienna, but many of the arriving refugees here said they were concerned that the requirements would become more stringent from Europe.

Since the early 1970's, Soviet Jews and some Christians who wanted to leave Moscow applied for Israeli visas at the Dutch Embassy, which performs consular functions for Israel. Their Ticket Out

Their Israeli visas, which were more readily available than those for the United States, became, in effect, the Jews' tickets out of the country. They would then proceed to Vienna or Rome, where up to 90 percent would declare they wanted to settle in the United States rather than Israel. American immigration officials would almost always grant them refugee status.

The Israeli Government has been pressing the United States to change the policy, in the hope of attracting more Soviet Jews to settle in Israel.

State Department officials, who announced the new policy earlier this month, said they did not act at the behest of the Israelis but to streamline and improve the emigration process.

Under the policy, Soviet Jews seeking to enter the United States must apply directly at the American Embassy in Moscow, as other would-be emigrants must do. Their names are put at the end of a list that a settlement expert said contained 40,000 names.

The United States' new immigration policy comes at a time when the Soviets are allowing record numbers of Soviet Jews to emigrate. Last year, 18,965 Jews emigrated, up from 8,155 in 1987. This year, the numbers of emigrants appears likely to exceed 48,000.

While the United States has pressed for more Soviet emigration for years, it faces the prospect of getting more Soviet refugees than it can handle. Some American officials have questioned whether the applicants should qualify as refugees since they are living under new liberal policies of the Governmnet led by Mikhail S. Gorbachev.